The development of Ukrzaliznytsia is hampered by personnel. UNN, Viktor Medvid

KYIV. 21 September. UNN. The longstanding non-transparent appointment of people who defended the interests of private business and supported corruption schemes to senior positions at Ukrzaliznytsia is one of the cornerstone problems of the state-owned enterprise's personnel policy. Economic expert Viktor Medvid told UNN about this.

"The main negative factor is the HR policy at Ukrzaliznytsia. All other factors are practically irrelevant and are always a consequence of human resources. There are also issues of vertical integration in terms of compliance with the marketing policy, backwardness in IT and quality - all of this is a consequence of the lack of motivation to work at Ukrzaliznytsia, a personnel problem," the expert said.

Viktor Medvid believes that one of the negative aspects of the HR policy is weak local managers and the dominance of positions with duplicate functions at Ukrzaliznytsia.

"The problem is that corruption is a collective thing, and in order to implement any corruption schemes, you need to recruit the same corrupt officials at all levels. In a geometric progression, each corrupt official manages 10-20 corrupt officials at the bottom, who do not allow Ukrzaliznytsia to develop," the expert also noted.

Among the state-owned enterprises that show a good example of increasing efficiency and financial results, Viktor Medvid named Ukrposhta, which has begun to show positive changes through a successful personnel policy.

A month ago, Volodymyr Zhmak was appointed chairman of Ukrzaliznytsia. Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy set him three main tasks: fast and tough management decisions, high financial performance and digitalization of services.

"Zhmak's first task is to make quick management decisions and reformat the team. When we know that a person is a scoundrel, he or she should be expelled quickly and harshly, and not wait for official inspections three times. If he is ineffective, we part ways. Here, you need to be an indifferent and tough manager who has a single customer - the state - and the financial well-being of the company. As for the anti-crisis program. UZ must return to its pre-crisis financial performance. We are removing duplicate functions, removing administrative staff who do not know what they are doing. Of course, this does not apply to the basic staff who have to work, and we will protect them - this is a socially sacred mission of the state," said Krykliy.

Zhmak, for his part, has already announced a "cleanup" of duplicative and managerial positions that are unreasonably overstaffed at Ukrzaliznytsia.